Theater: Sondheims's 'Road Show' travels to Boston

By Jody Feinberg/The Patriot Ledger

Thursday

Jan 11, 2018 at 11:35 AM

In the long history of American con men and fortune seekers, Wilson and Addison Mizner caught the attention of composer Stephen Sondheim. As presented by Sondheim in “Road Show,” the brothers – a professional gambler and an architect – were two eccentric characters who traveled the world pursuing success and left their mark on Boca Raton, Fla., in the early 20th century, where they duped investors into purchasing property and then cheated them.

“It’s about the American dream and how people have abused it,” said Spiro Veloudos, who directs the musical at The Lyric

Stage from Jan. 13 to Feb. 11. “The story excited me because it’s about how people selling the American dream can cheat and steal from others. About a year and a half ago, I started thinking that we were being sold a bill of goods, and unfortunately more people than not bought it.”

Although the musical – Sondheim’s most recent – was unsuccessful when it ran at The Public Theater in New York City, it nonetheless won the 2009 Obie Award for Music and Lyrics and the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Lyrics, and it has been revived in recent productions in Chicago and Washington, D.C., where Veloudos saw it.

“I’m hoping that people will relate to the story much in the same way I have when they see the parallel between men in the early part of the 20th century and now,” he said. “The work of Sondheim never hits you over the head politically, but it’s there in the story.”

Sondheim tends to develop characters who are outside the norm, which explains his interest in the scams and picaresque adventures of the Mizner brothers, Veloudos said. “Road Show” is Sondheim’s third collaboration with book writer John Weidman, with whom he created “Assassins” and “Pacific Overture.” As evidenced by its three previous titles, it went through multiple transformations over more than a decade as the creators sought to improve it.

“It’s a compelling American story that a lot of people don’t know about, but I think will find interesting,” Veloudos said.

It’s also a story about two very different brothers, who supported and undermined each other. Addison, an architect who was gay, wanted to create beauty as well as get rich and he eventually designed many luxury homes in Florida. Wilson, a professional gambler and womanizer (who in real life also wrote plays and screenplays) cared for little other than himself.

“It doesn’t matter whom he hurts because it’s all about him and about winning,” Veloudos said. “To him, everything is a game he’s trying to win.”

Though the production is not considered the best of Sonheim’s works, it offers his inimitable, thought-provoking and powerful songwriting. “You’re the Best Thing That Has Happened to Me” is a beautiful love song Addison sings to his lover, and “Waste,” a vigorous ensemble number, sets the tone for the brothers and their pursuit of reinvention and wealth: “Such a good start/ Such a bad end/ Leaves a bad taste/Squandered his art/Cheated his friend/All of it a waste.”